For some reason we’re mostly used to software that changes design in big and obvious ways every once in a while. New color scheme, visual style, layout, you name it. We can live with that. Takes some time to adjust, sure, but we can see all that has changed right away. The modifications aren’t subtle, we don’t accidentally stumble upon them.

WordPress recently updated to a newer version, and it’s got the usual under-the-hood business going on, but also some very subtle visual changes. It’s now using a slightly different font. That’s most definitely a trivial change, but it’s been catching me off-guard for a couple days now. Every time I look at some parts of the interface, my eyes expect to see the same old text in the same old font. And it sees it, but it isn’t an exact match with the expectation. Not wildly different enough to stand out, but when you look at it things just look… off.

Normally I’d take no issue with this stuff, but it just gets at me. Help.
~ Fang